You are here again.

"There you are.

Fading into the setting sun at the end of the path.

And here I am.

My heart still rooted to the spot where we first met."

...

Just the other day she asked him why he always wrote her letters every day he was away. His mind had scrambled for something to say, but all he could think was 'Don't you know?'

Don't you know?

How little I can bear to be parted from you.

She looks up at him as he stoops to enter her chambers. You are here again, she says. Perhaps it is irritation that he spies in the knit of her brows. She sets aside the letter she has been reading; it is not one of his, he notes.

She is propped up in bed. She has put aside her finery for a plain white nightdress, her only adornment the lazy coil of tresses that she has let down, the ends fanning out over the pillows. She is most beautiful this way, he thinks.

Her child stirs beside her. She looks so much like her mother, he thinks. The child is the reason she has given him, for not sharing his bed, even though they have been husband and wife nearly a year now.

It's late, she murmurs.

If he could, he would spend every moment with her.

'I just came to bid you a good night, my lady.' With that, he takes one last look at her, and bowing, leaves the room.

...a